September 28, 2019

Upcoming Events*

• Middle School Curriculum Night~ Thursday, October 3rd @ 6:30 in Swift House Kiva; 7:30 School-Wide Learning Expo
• No School ~ Wednesday, October 9th
• School Picture Retake Day~ Tuesday, October 15th
• Dine for a Cause at Agave to Benefit NYC Trip~ Thursday, October 17th
• No School~ Friday, October 18th 
• Swift-Sponsored Fun Night~ Friday, October 25th
• Swift Hosts WCS Dance~ Friday, December 6th
• Bottle Drive~ Benefits NYC Trip~ Saturday, December 7th 
• Polar Express, Shift TBD~ Saturday, Dec 14th OR Sunday, December 15th
• No School - Thanksgiving Break ~ November 25th-29th
• No School - Early Winter Break - December 23rd- January 3rd

*Do you use Google Calendar?  If so, you can add the Swift Events calendar to your own by selecting "Add Calendar" from within Google Calendar and pasting in this url: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/cssu.org_176m2ijqrmc3mt68dgjcgdi0u0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Curriculum Night

Please join us on Thursday, October 3rd at 6:30 pm in the Swift House kiva for our Curriculum Night.  We will look at our schedule, curriculum, sustainability action projects, technology use, communications, PLPs, assessments, reporting, field trips, parent involvement, and the FAP.    There will be time for questions and an opportunity to meet with teachers from around the school following our team meeting.

8th Grade Challenge Kickoff

Swift Core teachers met with 8th Graders on Friday to officially launch the 8th Grade Challenge projects.  While the 8th Grade Challenge is a school-wide intiative focused on getting 8th graders connected with the greater community, each team structures the project with different elements and due dates.  We reviewed the Swift House structure of the project in the form of questions:

• What do you want to DO for your 8th-grade challenge project? These ideas are action items.
• Why are the actions above important to you? What issues/problems do you care about that this project will help to solve?
• Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does this project connect to? (You may list more than one if applicable.)
• Explain the connection between your project and this goal(s).
• What local (or global) organization(s) do you plan to use as a resource while you work on your community connection?
• Who will be your mentor from the organization listed above? You may list more than one person here if you have more than one possible connection. 
• What would you like to learn more about in connection with this service opportunity? (This must be new learning for you!)

These questions help frame the types of projects students may consider.  We highly encourage families to take advantages of connections in the community to help identify mentors and will survey families later in October to gather shared resources/connections/skills.  Click here to view the full "Kick-Off Form," due October 31st.  

Theater Unit Launch

Swift House presents...

Twelfth Night

&

Alice 

Our annual team theater unit begins this week with auditions for speaking roles on Thursday and Friday. Students first complete a survey stating which play they would like to participate and how they would like to be involved.

Theater Survey

Theater Survey Using the results from the survey and auditions, we assign all students a role in the shows, ranging from full-time acting to technical leadership roles, small acting roles to costume designing. If students have a smaller part on stage they spend the first weeks of the unit reading the script as literature and performing their own "Reader's Theater" version. Please save the date for our evening performance, during the week of November 4th, exact time and date TBA soon!

Climate Strike

More photos of Swifties in Burlington, taking part of the global Climate Strike. 

School Days

5th and 6th graders have been learning about cell theory (all living organisms are made of one or more cells) and cell functions.  On Thursday and Friday, students created models of "The School as a Cell," comparing functions of a cell to parts of our school.